FAQ

What is coaching?    

We see coaching as a continuous and positive process that supports individuals in building awareness of themselves, namely their strengths, values and behaviour, and relating this awareness to a goal or goals, accepting the need to change in order to reach these goals, and taking the action necessary to enable change.

The process is facilitated by the coach. As the coach, we create a safe environment, where the client is comfortable to open up, and able to work through issues and create an action plan to support themselves in making changes. Throughout the process, the coach does not judge, criticise or advise, but plays a facilitating and supporting role, helping the client to see their successes. The coach will also challenge the client where the coach senses a deviation from course or senses the client is not being true to themselves or their goals.

What can I expect from coaching?    

You can expect to get a deeper understanding of yourself and your motivations, as well as the habits and behaviours that you wish to stop exhibiting. As an individual, who is willing and able to take responsibility for your decisions and actions, you can expect to take steps towards your goals and achieve these faster than you would have achieved them without a coach.

What are my responsibilities as a client?

Your responsibilities are to be committed to the process and to be open to creating awareness (of a behaviour, belief or attitude that is causing a bottleneck to success in your goal), accept the need to change (and the benefits change will bring) and develop and take actions to overcome the bottleneck. Depending on the process you adopt, you will be measuring the progress you are making based on feedback from your colleagues and stakeholders in the process – and the suggestions they make as to how to improve.

How long does a coaching relationship last?              

This depends on the process that the individual client or client’s organisation adopts.  To achieve sustainable, recognizable change, the coaching process typically lasts 1 year. It is also possible to have shorter engagements of 6 months, during which the client focuses on professional development areas. Whilst the client typically makes changes within this timeframe, the client may at times resort to a previous default behaviour or belief. It is therefore not possible to guarantee sustainable, recognizable change.   

How is a coach different to a mentor?    

A mentor acts as an advisor to an individual, offering suggestions and guidance. A coach empowers the individual to draw on their own resourcefulness to come up with options and an action plan. The client may seek feedback and suggestions from colleagues to determine the effectiveness of the actions he or she is taking.

A mentor generally acts at a surface level, not taking into account the individual’s values and gifts. A coach operates at a deeper level to ensure the individual is acting in alignment with values, gifts and purpose in life.    

How can I arrange coaching for my organization?    

Let us first have a discussion as to what you are looking for from coaching and how we can support you. Depending on the organization and your role within it, we can develop a strategy for introducing coaching to your organization and your organizational decision-makers.

How long does it take to start an engagement?    

During the proposal process we will have shared and decided on the format, structure and methodology for the coaching. Once selected, we fine-tune the approach, matching coachees and coaches and holding an introductory session between the coach and coachee to ensure a ‘fit’. For engagements where the coaching objective is not yet defined, we may decide to conduct a 360 survey, which may take the form of in-person interviews with stakeholders, or an online survey. Once the results from the 360 are gathered, the introductory session serves to discuss insights, define coaching objectives and ensure a ‘fit’ between coach and coachee.

How much effort is required for a person to achieve their goals?

Coaching relationships may serve different purposes. The coachee may want to change a behaviour - the behaviour is clearly defined and the goal clear. A coachee may want a coach as a sounding board, where the coach supports the coachee gain awareness and decide optimal courses of action on an ongoing basis.

Where behavioural change is the goal, the speed with which a person changes a habit varies from person to person. Research suggests that with a concerted effort on practicing defined, agreed actions, people achieve change. Lasting change typically takes six months to one year to achieve, depending on the person. At times, the bigger question is whether both the coachee and the coachee’s stakeholders agree that the coachee has achieved the defined goal. We can measure that change through a before and after 360 survey.

What if I think I have changed but no one else sees the changes?

If you perceive change in yourself, but others don’t, then in their eyes, you have not changed. As the saying goes, perception is all. It is important to seek specific feedback from others, so that both you and they are clear on where you require feedback – and if necessary, share examples of where you believe you exhibited changed behaviour.

Is everything confidential?

All discussions are confidential. You may discuss various matters with the coach and the discussions will be strictly confidential. However, if the engagement is for the 1 year term and based on no performance, no pay, the ratings you receive on the perceived change in your behaviour/focus areas, will be shared, in order to determine the success of the engagement.

How is a coach different to a mentor?    

A mentor acts as an adviser to an individual, offering suggestions and guidance. A coach empowers the individual to draw on their own resourcefulness to come up with options and an action plan – asking the questions that allow the client to come up with the best answers for themselves. A mentor generally acts at a surface level, not necessarily taking into account the individual’s values, strengths and sense of purpose. A coach operates at a deeper level to ensure the individual is acting in alignment with values and strengths.

Leadership Excellence FAQ

What is the process?

We work with you to define the objective of leadership development interventions. Where the underlying challenge has been defined, this may take the form of a few interactions with key leadership stakeholders. Where there is a clear sense that change is required, but the underlying challenges are less clear, we may undertake a broader, wider-ranging discovery phase.

During a typical discovery phase, we interview stakeholders across the organization to surface core issues and present findings to you and your leadership team. We then craft a proposed approach and fine-tune this together with you. For large-scale interventions, we may decide to run pilots to ensure the program is meeting objectives and delivering the desired results.

What leadership development courses are available?

We work with diverse partners with expertise in critical leadership areas, ranging from digital transformation to decision-making, vision and strategy to negotiation, executive presence to team building. We will work with you to define objectives and partner with experts to deliver the programs.

How will leadership excellence workshops enable change?

We create workshops that focus on the experiential, combining theory with practice. There is a focus on learning through doing, on reflection and on agreeing to take action. Achieving change requires longer-term practice. We create engagements that are purely workshop bases, as well as interventions that are based on face to face workshops and also include webinar-based interactions for further learning, progress sharing and ‘office hours’.

We recommend running workshops in conjunction with coaching. Workshops raise awareness and coaching enables one-on-one support to achieve change. We also create longer term interventions, where face-to-face sessions are supported with webinars and coaching sessions.

 How can I make the most of what I learn?

The most effective way to reinforce learnings is to practice what you have learnt. Following a workshop, there will be some key take-aways that resonate with you and which you want to inculcate into your behaviour. During the workshop, we take time to draft an action plan to facilitate turning learning into practice. Even more effective is to follow up the workshop with coaching, as the coaching process supports you in building a new habit more quickly than without a coach.

How can you help leadership teams improve performance?

If leadership teams are not performing as required, the first step is to understand where the bottlenecks are and how these are manifesting themselves. This requires factual analysis, as well as assessments and interviews with the leadership team. Once completed, it will be possible to see the bottlenecks – namely the behaviours that are inhibiting optimal performance among the team. Note also, that strategic analysis will be required to determine whether the team is setting the correct course. We can facilitate the process of conducting a strategic analysis among the leadership team.